how to dissolve red phosporous?

[daniel limbert]

Can you dissolve it & analyse thr purity of red phosphorous?

[YT2095]

the Red allotrope of Phosphorus has no known solvents that I`m aware of.

what sort of impurities are you looking for? there may be Other ways to establish what they are without the need for a solvent.

[John Cuthber]

I have been asked to measure the purity of red P before. I weighed it, then washed it with a variety of solvents (knowning that none of them would dissolve the P) then reweighed it.

[YT2095]

I have been asked to measure the purity of red P before. I weighed it, then washed it with a variety of solvents (knowning that none of them would dissolve the P) then reweighed it.

 

that`s ok, but what if the impurity is Glass powder, like he extracted it from the side of match boxes?

 

and I`m kinda half thinking this may be the case here

[John Cuthber]

"ok, but what if the impurity is Glass powder"

 

Then you wash it with HF.

Logically though, I admit there's still a problem. If I used HF (I didn't) I'd have needed to use something a like polypropylene or PTFE filter. If I did that, how would I know there wasn't PP or PTFE in the red P.

 

I knew what I was looking for in the the red P from another part of the incident investigation.

 

You could burn the stuff in a stream of air and titrate the phosphoric acid.